Last Words (Skylar) [G/I]

[Ichabod Afof]

Somewhere underground, just ourside the walls of Surif...

For the past hour, Ichabod had been preparing. He had arrived at this, his favourite place, after a long trip of teleporation that scrambled his brain in such a way that he felt he ought to take a breath before starting... But once the time had passed and his head no longer ached and the only pain came from his churning stomach, he set to what he had to do.

The first thing that happened, was the chaining. Ichabod loved this place because of how easily it was set up. In the past it had been a torture chamber, so the chains decorated the walls like garlands during the holidays... And the rusted keys had been laying down a clogged drain. So when he was hungry and he had found a meal, he brought it back here and hung it up to drain it. Drain it of stories. Drain it of life.

The next thing was a brief cleaning. The tool in this place were rather disgusting, rusted beyond the point of recognition, and so when he had come he had brought some of his own. Some simple things he'd picked up on his travels. Nothing quite as horrifyingly wonderful as the breast ripper that lay in a puddle of it's own sin, or the hot coals he was sure had been used based on the remnants left behind by souls akin to his. Ichabod would have loved to use these things, but he did not want his meal to die from an infection. He did not want to taint the meat that he himself would consume... All he wanted to do was get what he wanted before he ate what he wanted. So he brought a few knives, and he cleaned them before every use. He would clean until the scent of sanitation burned his nostrils, and until they reflected his odd eyes right back at him.

"Hello there," Ichabod smiled as he heard the chains rustle. He turned on his heel, setting down the tools of a trade he had found himself getting familiar with over the years. He stared down his prey, all bound with no place to go but into Ephilroa. Nothing to say but last words that only Ichabod's memory would be evidence of.

A chair sat before the chains, far enough away that even with enough swinging of the victim the toes could not reach - close enough that there was a certain intimacy that hung in the air. Ichabod blood felt heated, and he felt an anticipatory sweat begin to coat his pale face as he took to the chair. The piece of furniture was old, large, but comfortable looking. It seemed as if it might have been taken straight from a castle or palace, and the scorch marks could be evidence of it being salvaged. The chair was plush, apholstered with a red fabric that may have been from stain or from make. A lion's head was carved into the arms of the chair, and a claw foot reached out from each leg. The back was high, and when Ichabod sat in it, his head hung over two feet below the top of the scorched back. Ichabod took his seat, resting his buttocks on the very edge as he leaned forward to his groggy prisoner.

"How are you feeling?" Ichabod asked, seeming to truly care about the boy's well-being. In all technicality, he did care. He wanted his meat to be healthy, after all.

Timestamp: Emonea 1st, 3:30AM

[Skylar]

His body was awake before his mind was, and though he could feel that he was suspended by something cold and metal on each wrist, his eyes couldn't seem to open. All he knew for those first seconds was darkness and pain. His head hurt, his arms hurt, and when he eventually got his eyes open they hurt too. The world was a blurred mess, but when Ichabod greeted him it came through loud and clear. Too loud, but that was mainly because of the splitting headache Skylar was experiencing and not due to the man speaking and louder than he should have.

Skylar couldn't find the strength yet to hold his head up, but his eyes were beginning to focus without hurting and he could see he was definitely no longer in the general district. He no longer held any false hope that he was simply being paranoid. If the man had really meant him no harm, he wouldn't have knocked him out and chained him up. No, Skylar didn't expect to get out of this alive. The worst part about it was that he would never be an adult. That was what bothered him the most. He'd lived his entire life waiting, and now he was going to die.

The man's voice interrupted his bitter thoughts, asking how he was feeling. Skylar lifted his head up briefly to look over at his soon-to-be murderer, but didn't speak. What was the point? It was probably pretty clear to the man how he was feeling. He had been knocked out, chained up, and was going to be killed. How would any person feel at this point? Skylar let his head fall and he stared at the ground, awaiting the inevitable. He had nothing left to say.

[Ichabod Afof]

"Why so quiet?" Ichabod asked with a playful little frown. He reached out and lifted the boy's chin, matching his eyes with Skylar's in a malicious stare. Quiet just would not do. He wanted this boy's story. He wanted to know everything. Especially if there was something special, something interesting, something he could make into a new story. "Grimalkin got your tongue?" She released the boys chin and moved back to sit in the armchair again, making himself comfortable.

"Now you may as well speak up, otherwise your last words will be that your Grimalkin is probably looking for you. Those aren't very... meaningful. The beast has probably forgotten all about you by now. Probably gorging itself on the remainder of food from the ball. Did you know that it's a new year? Two thousand and ten. Two millenia and a decade. Can you imagine how many stories have been told? Retold? And how many of those are... special, remembered, repeated, reputed? Not as many as you might think. People die every day and no one really remembers them. That's why you should feel special. You have the chance to be remembered. Your story will be told, you will be recalled, you will be special. All you have to do is... speak up. Tell me about your life. Tell me who you are, who you want(ed) to be. What you know, what you've done. So speak up and take your chance. It might be the key to living forever." The last part wasn't even a lie. Some might say it was, some might say that Ichabod had no intention of letting Skylar live. That was true in the literal sense. But if Skylar was interesting, if Skylar had a story to tell... He could live forever. The same way Ichabod wanted to live forever. To be known. To be reputed. Skylar had an opportunity to live forever, and it was a chance Ichabod would die to take.

[Skylar]

The man reached out and put his hand on Skylar's chin, lifting it up so he could glare into his eyes rather than at the top of his head. He asked why Skylar was so quiet, then jokingly asked if a grimalkin had his tongue. Then the man let go of his chin and Skylar's head fell back to it's previous position, staring down at the cold, hard floor beneath him. He pulled on the chains that were attached to his wrists, but found that they were on securely and he likely wouldn't be able to get out of them any time soon. Or ever. Suddenly the man started speaking. And speaking, and speaking. He went on about stories, blah blah, special, blah blah, speak up, blah blah, live forever. So what? This guy, this murdered, wanted Skylar to tell him his life story? So that he could tell it to other people, and he would then metaphorically live forever. Ha. Yeah right.

Skylar lifted his head to look at the man, who he found was now sitting in the chair that had been set in front of him. "What the hell do you care who I am? Who I wanted to be? If you cared at all about getting an interesting story from me, you would have waited for me to have actually done something with my life! Kids can't do anything! Nobody cares about how many years you've been alive. It's all about how old you look, and I don't exactly look my age. I've gone to school, lived with my parents, run away from home, found a grimalkin, and been knocked unconscious and tied up in a fucking basement. That's it, that's all, that's my life. And now it's over."

[Ichabod Afof]

If you had been alive for twenty mid years, how could you not have done a single interesting thing? Even if you looked like a child. Ichabod had done interesting things as a child. Most people he killed had done at least one interesting thing. Or had seen an interesting thing happen. This was a complete disappointment. Would the meal even taste as good without a story behind it? Ichabod frowned and leaned back in the chair, slouching and concentrating on his own hands that he had folded before his eyes.

"Where did you get the money for a Grimalkin?" He finally asked, standing up and meandering over to his tools as he did, "They don't come that cheap, you know. Did you work? Did your parents give you all that money?" He ran his hands over the semi-rusted metal of his tools, determining which would be the best for this disappointment of a dinner. Perhaps he would just make this quick. Turn the boy around, slit his throat and let him bleed out before cutting away the flesh and giving it a taste.

At the same time, if there was no interesting story behind it all... Ichabod would have to make it worth it some way. And he did enjoy the processes of torture and pain. He chose a silver chased knife with an ornate bottom and a curved blade. It was used for flaying back before such a thing became illegal. The manchild would regret his lack of history, that was certain.

[Skylar]

The man asked him where he had gotten the money to purchase a grimalkin, as they were apparently expensive, or atleast not cheap. Skylar chuckled when the man asked if Skylar's parents had given him money to buy it, but stopped when he realized it hurt his still tender head. "I haven't spoken to my parents in years," he informed the man. "And I didn't buy Jinx. I found her in a cave."

When Skylar looked over at the man he saw him pick up an ornate and very dangerous knife and found himself wondering how the man was going to kill him, and whether or not it would hurt. Maybe if it hurt enough, he would pass out and he wouldn't have to deal with the rest of what surely would be a very torturous death.

[Ichabod Afof]

He found it in a cave? That was something he hadn't told him before. Explored a cave. And what was that about not seeing his parents? Surely there was some kind of story there, yes? Some sort of falling out. Did the boy honestly think that his death would be easier if he did not say a word about his long life? Obviously if he did not elaborate he would be taught about such things.

"A cave?" Ichabod asked with a small smile and a curious question lightening his voice, "You never mentioned a cave. I believe you said that you'd gone to school, lived with your parents, got a Grimalkin and then... Well, met me. How about a little more... detail, hm? I assure you, you'll be better off for it," As Ichabod spoke he dragged the knife lightly over the pale skin of his dinner, his breakfast. It was not sharp enough to cut with such little effort, but it was as cold as ice and any skin (save for those built for cold climates) touched would form goosebumps around the steel. Goosebumps that, at the sight of them, lead Ichabod's spine to chill. Lead his face to curl into a disturbing grin. "Pain isn't something most people prefer, after all.

[Skylar]

Sure, better off for it. Right. As if he wasn't going to end up dead anyway. Granted, the man continued by saying that pain wasn't very well liked and Skylar had to agree. If he was going to die, he might as well die quickly, right? Right. He wished he could think that if he told a long enough story, someone would come in at the last second and save the day or some such thing, but he knew that was too much to hope for. Things like that only happened in books, and to people who actually had friends that cared enough to find the person. No one even knew he was here, and Skylar didn't even know where 'here' was. He could be on the other side of Setsuwa from where he was oh so recently hanging out at the ball. Who knew? The man did, but something told Skylar that the man was more interested in what Skylar had to say than in providing answers.

"I heard from someone that there was a nice cave in Liesdro, so I decided to check it out. While I was exploring I ran into this weird otter thing with wings that tried to kill me, so I ran away. Then I found a barrel full of fish, and then I found Jinx. If the fish hadn't distracted her, she probably would have tried to eat me. She looked pretty hungry. Um... then we sort of stuck together and that's how we both ended up at the ball."

That was exactly the reason why Skylar usually left storytelling to the professionals. Some people could weave words like a quilt and make people feel like they were actually there. They could paint a beautiful picture with just their voice. Skylar's picture was more like a five-year-old's finger painting. It was a picture, but you sure weren't going to see people paying buckets of gold for it.

[Ichabod Afof]

How dull.

Was that really all the boy had done? He'd gone into a cave, he'd found a creature, run away and found another creature. Oh, and a barrel of fish. Even Ichabod couldn't find a way to make that a particularly interesting story. Even if he turned the Otter into a Ceberus and the barrel of fish into a barrel of recently dismembered human remains it wasn't at all interesting. It was disgustingly boring and contrived. Who could go about their lives thinking that was all he had done? That was all that had happened in one's life?

"What about..." Ichabod began, considering the knife in his hand, twirling it as he spent a series of dangerous moments thinking. "You said your parents and you had a falling out, correct?" Ichabod raised his brows as he looked at Skylar hanging there, looking ready to eat - but not delicious. He was missing that very essential flavour that Ichabod required. It was the reason he never ate at a restaurant. The dinner they served you didn't have a story. It didn't have a memory or a place in the world. It was just... dinner. Which was what this boy was. He wasn't interesting. He had made it so that Ichabod's stomach couldn't even muster a single rumble at the sight or his flesh. He hadn't eaten since those few grapes at the ball, and before that he hadn't eaten for over a day. Still, this boy's boring life story had made Ichabod feel more sick to his stomach than anything else. If the boy wasn't interesting, at least his parents might lend Ichabod an appetite, "Go on, tell me about your parents. And if your falling out with them is less than a couple of sentences, tell me what you know of their history."

[Skylar]

Skylar tried to think of something to say to that. His falling out hadn't been very dramatic, and to be quiet honest he had never cared much for listening to his parents talk about themselves. No he wished he had, because it seemed this guy was bored and that meant a slow death for Skylar. "Well," he began, his brain racing to make up something that sounded cool, "when my parents were young, they were supporters of the Bloody Grail. Unfortunately, most other people in Submiere were not, and when their neighbours found out about how they had been secretly helping the pirates out, they were driven from their home and forced to Niscica. It was there that they had me, which is why I don't look like a typical Aquen. I wasn't born in or around a body of water, so my eyes turned the green of the grass instead of blue like the ocean or a river. There were also many purple flowers around, which explains my hair colour as well. My parents moved back to Submier shortly after my birth so I could live a normal childhood, but their continued affiliation with the pirates meant that I could never have friends come to my house and so I didn't have many friends. Not being a supporter of the pirates, when I was old enough to take care of myself, or so I thought, I left. My parents were arrested soon after and I haven't heard from them since. I can only assume they were executed for their crimes." That was certainly more interesting than what had actually happened. He hoped the man would think so as well.

[Ichabod Afof]

Ichabod hadn't struck gold, that was certain. Still... there was something here that Ichabod could use. It wouldn't be the best story he would tell in his lifetime, it would likely not be something people would recall and say 'Wow!', but it was something that would entertain. With the right twists it was something that could spook an audience. "Well, that wasn't so bad," He complimented, returning to the old tools. He deliberated over them, cautious in his choosing of what would provide the perfect end to Skylar's story. "You shouldn't make a career out of story-telling though," Ichabod joked as he made his choice. Most people might have been disturbed by the thought of taking away the prospects of a career, particularly from a child seeming so young. Ichabod wasn't a person though. At least, most wouldn't describe him as one.

"I have something else I should probably let you know," He informed the boy, brandishing the weapon of choice. It was a small silvery tool with a sharp point, something akin to a surgeon's scalpel only smaller, as though it were meant for an incision in the eye as opposed to in the chest or, essentially, anywhere else, "I'm a bit of a compulsive liar." And with that, Ichabod took the miniscule blade to Skylar's face and cut delibrately around the eye. Just under the brow and then down to where the cheek intruded on the bags of the eyes. In a circle - one that was rough and haphazard - around both eyes like a deranged and motley pair of glasses. It was a slow process, and one that Ichabod was sure to agonize the child, but that was one of the reasons Ichabod did any of this.